Historic’ bout of frost decimate French winemakers’ harvest

French fruit growers and winemakers warn that the bulk of their harvest this year has continued lost to this week’s frost.

“No region has been spared: beets, vines fruit trees … All the different kind of support must be initiated urgently,” the National Federation of Unions for Farmers (FNSEA) stressed.

“Exceptional times call for extraordinary steps,” it added

He estimates that almost “80 per cent to 90 per cent” of the nearly 68,000 hectares making up to his terroir have been lost to the frost.
“The winegrowers are required, downcast,” he went on, highlighting the multiple strains they have had to fight within new years, including Brexit, US tariffs and the COVID-19 pandemic, which all put pressure on sales as well as exports.

Burgundy, which has 28,841 hectares of vines, fared not better.
Labet, President of the Bureau interprofessionnel des vins de Bourgogne (BIVB), said.

The region’s prestigious Chablis appellation is also particularly hit with the damage valued at about “80 to 90 per cent” by Frédéric Gueguen of the Federation of Defence office of the Chablis appellation. “I fear that there may be some fields that will not heal.”

The south of Burgundy has also written -8°C temperatures.

“It is historic because of the power of the frost and the size of the areas affected: no one was spared at Saône-et-Loire. It is exceptional,” Thomas Canonier, wine consultant at Vinipôle Sud-Bourgogne, highlighted.

Winemakers in the Bordeaux region — in the southwest — have also examined the alarm.

According to the Bordeaux Wine Trade Council (CIVB), the frost has “hit hard” vast areas of the Bordeaux grapes, with silver seldom falling below -5°C and eliminating all 65 appellations, which represent 111,000 hectares of vines, or about 15% of the French vineyard.